I hadn’t realized that this past April was the 35th anniversary of the passing of Lucille Ball, television’s greatest comedienne. Probably because that former standby of media information—the old “TV listings”—hadn’t reminded me. Since traditional linear network TV is now essentially a niche joke—the last form of mass communication that actually helped unify our popular culture, as opposed to the internet and streaming, which have completely Balkanized it—I seriously doubt there was any kind of effort on the part of her old network, CBS, to commemorate her death while celebrating her legacy (maybe they did something on MeTV…do people still have cable?).
Continue reading ‘Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie’ (1993): A familial look back at the fascinating, complicated coupleTag Archives: Laurence Luckinbill
‘The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case’ (1976): Anthony Hopkins hams it up in shallow true crime performance
So, wait: Lindbergh willingly sacrificed his kid to Nobel Prize-winning biologist Alexis Carrel in some Abrahamic gesture to provide Carrel a body for eugenics experimentation that went wrong…and then covered it up? That promotion for a new whack-job book conspiracy theory came over my news feed the other day, and sucker though I am for any and all looney conspiracy theories, it immediately reminded me of NBC’s 1976 long, long telemovie, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, where the real crime wasn’t the kidnapping, but Anthony Hopkins’ deliciously awful Emmy-winning performance.
Continue reading ‘The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case’ (1976): Anthony Hopkins hams it up in shallow true crime performance